Eleusian Visions Archives: Over 15 years in the shadows and now at last, presenting the fabled "Lost Issue": HIEROGLYPH GUMBO#2 (circa 1995)

Note:
In the coming one to two weeks, I will be posting additional material from the archives. Of particular note are the extensive selections from co-founding editor Daniel Calabrese. - ed. 03/09/2011

Featuring art by the renowned Nico Vosloo.
(C) Nico Vosloo, all rights reserved and used with permission.

Published by Interfusion Publishing - Tucson, Arizona

T.S. Steve Minton, Publisher & Editor

Note: In presenting on this blog the archives of this publication, originally intended as a print magazine circa 1995, I have made an editorial decision to preserve its original character. This means that instead of re-typing its text in a uniform font and aiming for the slick graphic professionalism now so easily attainable, I have simply scanned the original pages "as is." To me this seems like a more accurate reflection of the spirit of the "zine revolution" which at that time was in its heyday. The pages below may lack consistency in their manner of presentation, but the diverse range of my talented stable of contributors more than makes up for this lack. The incredibly vibrant originality, vitality, irreverent wit, and piercing insight of their work bursts out of the limited confines of the technology I had available at the time. - ed.

Editorial by T.S. Steve Minton

"Jazz" by Mary Mackenzie. (Charcoal on archival paper)

"A 40mm Link" - Joseph Wheeler

Pamela Shapiro

"Thetan Release" - One of his most ambitious works, this painting (done on canvas and ostrich skin) reveals Vosloo's deeply spiritual concerns. The stunning imagery encapsulates an ecumenical understanding of the world's religious traditions. The central orb is a multi-colored depiction of "Theta" (Greek for soul), and consists of glass and acrylic paint covered by a dome of macrylon plastic. Upon reaching our highest incarnation, through the grace of the Universal Spirit, we may then transport via Theta to the spiritual realms beyond. The melted silver aluminum alloy symbolizes this transformative process of the soul. If we have lived a life based primarily upon satisfying our material lusts, however, we shall be reborn back into the world of pain and suffering, down with the clay-like figures swirling in the abyss at the bottom of the painting.

"Ishwama"

Showcase Artist: David Belcheff

"Abe Duke" - A vicious and quizzical satire on David Duke, the white nationalist and former KKK member who in the early 90s was polluting the American political process as Republican Louisiana State Representative. - ed.

"Crime Animals" installation of canvas paintings (circa 1992), at Steve Eye's former Downtown Performance Center (now the Matt Bevel Institute - Museum of Kinetic Art), Tucson, Az.

"Minimum Wage Slave" and "Cut on the Dotted Line"

"Storyteller" - Mural on south wall of the former Downtown Performance Center (founded by Steven Eye, now of Solar Culture Gallery), dedicated to Native American author and University of Arizona professor Leslie Marmon Silko.

Essay: "The Back of the Barn is Dripping Wet" by Daniel Calabrese

Excerpt from the short story "Shiner" by Daniel Calabrese, based in South Boston of the early 90s:

I awoke Sunday morning at five-thirty and was out trekking my way through the snow just as the sun ruptured the sky with its first subdued shimmer. The elongated red-brick facades of Harrison Avenue's post industrial wasteland rose into the sky of their own trapezoidal volition. From the sheer silence of that hour I swore I could hear an echo, some authentic click, bang and jangle from a South End decades gone. The intersection of Harrison and East Berkeley was saturated with the sweet, warm aroma of Quinzani's latest batch of French bread. Chinatown, through which is the latest roundabout route to South Station, takes on a curious aura when deserted, with its Kneeland Street of ever-hissing wounds, plumes of ghastly pollution always rising, a taxi struggles by, extinguishing the hiss for a fraction of a second. The resonant hum of South Station's immense dome quelled the patter and mumblings of those scant commuters present and the car I occupied on the Red Line that morning I had entirely to myself. During the train's momentary above-water leap over a totally frozen Charles River, I gazed at the usual quaint appeal of the Back Bay, its dark red apartments rising oblong and irregular against a fresh, steel-blue sky; the Prudential and the Hancock, those two steadfast brothers, loomed, oversaw, glimmered. Before burrowing back into the earth, I noticed a single set of human footprints spanning across the river; someone decided to be a lunatic and lived to tell about it, I cheered him.

Daniel Calabrese

"Lovers" - Sculpture by Beverly Ennis

Beverly Ennis

Tony Palladini

"Portraits of Kerouac" by Brian Puzey. Text by T.S. Steve Minton.

Note: The late Mr. Puzey, the former owner of Puzey Gallery in downtown Tucson, was arrested and served prison time for the theft, reproduction and black market sale of work by the artists he represented at his gallery. Here at Interfusion Publishing, we condemn these actions, acknowledge that the preceding artworks of Kerouac were re-interpreted from pre-existing photographs of Kerouac (and will take them down if in fact they violate any copyright laws, at the request of the copyright holders emailed by T.S. Steve Minton at interfusionbiz@yahoo.com), and we strive in the face of these crimes - for which he paid such an enormous price - to remember Puzey's more positive qualities. - ed.

"Fraudulence" - Collage by T.S. Steve Minton

"The Day Johnny Took Magic Taffy"

Edit HTML

"State of the Union"

Essay: "Illusions of Participation, Modalities of Consciousness" - T.S. Steve Minton

Tucson characters, circa mid-90s: Carlos Hadaway (celebrated southwestern oil painter, cowboy folklorist, a.k.a. "The Space Cowboy" - those who know do not ask, and those who ask do not know); Franz Metallo (occultist, sitar and exotic world musician, pioneer at Tucson branch and staunch critic of the Hare Krishna organization); Shane Eden (conspiracy buff extraordinaire, blues musician, trailblazing TV producer at Access Tucson -- formerly Tucson Community Cable Corporation).

- Photos by T.S. Steve Minton, 1st and last taken at 4th Avenue Street Fair